Hi Jari,
Thanks for the blog, and I agree with it. My ideas are below and sorry if not short,
I may not have the full solution because never met participants in meeting, but I think the source of the problem is as follows:
1- Many technical people feel better to discuss face to face (f2f) than discuss on the list, so many decisions still not discussed well on the list.
2- Editors do most of their work off-line, which is not right IMO. Editors mostly feel they own the WG I-D and they can edit without WG objection, but if one participant objects, they say no one supports you.
3- ADs review the I-D which they communicate with their WG, but not much summary to the community in the IETF Last Call. Why not the AD describes the I-D to community to make more people involved to *review* or *use*.
4- Participant only join a review if interested, but who will do the effort to make other areas or WGs interested.
5-Are the WGs of same Area working as a team, and do they thing the I-Ds produced have interaction, or is it only the ADs that should think of these things.
6- Usually participants are bussy so they may not got time to review, but hopefully the WG chairs do review or find who can.
7- When reviewer comments to IESG, there is no much reflect/reply from the same body which can be seen, was the comments received?
8- Many meetings in IETF not managed well. I think that it needs time management that serve WG milstones. Some chairs don't mention milestones in every meeting for discussion.
The *solutions*, may be but I am not sure it can *work*, (we may need some one that knows the culture, or who can change it):
1- WGs Chairs and ADs should find ways to reduce repeated work done, should encourage participants (sometimes discouraged to review because no follow ups).
2- Use the IETF tracker tools to attach discussions to I-Ds. Most discussions are lost into translation or location or bussiness.
3- You need to acknowledge participants efforts. IMHO, it is strange that someone edits a draft for the WG and does not acknowledge efforts, then why is this organisation named IETF. What makes it worse is that thoes efforts are volunteering, so is it difficult to acknowledge few reviewers. Only if you have more than 10 reviewers you may excuse by writting *thanks to the WG*, how can editors thank the WG while only few participated.
4- Some Chairs don't give enough time/discussion for new I-D reviews (this is difficult task that the chair should try to know when is enough), if someone request to get more time, it is very easy to say there was no consensus of one objection. If editors have a tiny point they are able to make their thoughts through I-D without consensus.
5- The milestones of the WGs charters MUST be discussed, followed or updated. All meetings should include milestones discussions. I think it is not much followed/updated (slow to change). If we have slow progress to milestones then we are progressing slowly not efficiently. Slow is not bad but not having clear/presented future objectives is.
6- The IESG should mention the input comments they got in their evaluation discussion of the I-D. IESG calls for reviews but does not reflect to comments or to the general comments recieved. I see that only the authors of the I-D commenting on my review to IESG, which I think is wrong. If participants comments are not in the evaluation discussion why is the effort done.
Best Regards
AB